


All in Knots

by ancarett



Category: Smallville
Genre: Community: 12days_of_clois, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-28
Updated: 2009-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancarett/pseuds/ancarett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their first "real" Valentine's, Lois tests Clark in various ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All in Knots

"No peeking," Lois chided as she turned around to lock her apartment door. She'd met Clark at the door with her cloth coat already fastened.

Clark rolled his eyes as he swallowed awkwardly and tugged at his collar, all in a fruitless attempt to relax its stranglehold on his neck. "I wasn't, Lois," he managed to grumble through gritted teeth as she twisted the key in the lock and spun on her heel to regard him.

Lois frowned as she watched Clark struggle with his formal wear. Firmly she reached out to smooth the tie and shirt. "There. I'm not going to let our first official Valentine's Day out be spoiled by anything. And I mean anything: tornadoes, alien invasions, meteor freaks. Even wrinkled ties!"

Clark tried to hide his worried reaction to the long list of possible disasters that might demand his attention with a reassuring smile but Lois caught his unease. "Don't worry, Smallville. If, you know, worse comes to worse and you have to 'fly off', I'll understand, honestly. And I'll forgive you -- eventually! But can we try to have a civilized date?"

Clark shrugged his shoulders sheepishly as he followed his fast-paced partner and girlfriend down the hallway towards the parking lot. "It'd be a lot easier if we just stayed here," he suggested.

"I'm not eating takeout on Valentine's Day, Clark. And before you tell me you could cook something, think about what's in my kitchen," Lois suggested.

Clark glanced back to the apartment doorway, squinting slightly to peer through the walls with his x-ray vision. Excepting for a bag of coffee beans in the fridge and some ice cream in the freezer, the pickings were rather slim. With a sigh, he sped up his pace to slip past Lois and gallantly open the door for her to exit the building.

"That's the spirit, Clark," Lois said approvingly. She glanced up at the starry sky and shivered slightly in the chill of the winter's night. Clark put an arm around her shoulder to pull her in close to his side as they walked to the car.

"You can drive," Lois said, offering him the keys.

Clark raised his eyebrows at that as he opened the passenger door for her. Lois quirked her lips laughingly at his surprised expression. "It's a date, Clark. I'm letting you take the lead. But don't get too cocky. And if you race off in the middle of anything to do some of that, you know!, stuff!, you'd better make sure to leave the car keys back with me. Or this will be your last Valentine's outing with me, ever!"

Clark laughed out loud at Lois's threat. "Don't worry, Lois. I promise not to run off with your car keys for anything."

"Smart man," Lois said smugly as she buckled in. Clark put her car in gear and drove them smoothly to the restaurant.

***

Inside the doors of the posh eatery, they paused at the dim and quiet coatroom to leave their heavy winter outerwear. Lois sighed contentedly and began to unfasten her coat. Clark's eyes widened dramatically at the sight of a seemingly infinite amount of skin being revealed as she let the coat fall into his hands. With a panicked rush, he tried to shove Lois's coat back over her apparent nakedness.

"Clark, what's wrong with you?" Lois hissed in exasperation as she spun around and freed her coat from his nerveless fingers. She took advantage of that freedom to remove the coat completely and, while a stunned Clark stood staring, raised her eyebrows in exasperation before carefully hanging it up.

"Lois?" Clark managed, proud that he'd kept his voice from squeaking, "are you sure you didn't forget something?"

"Positive," Lois said impatiently as Clark opened and closed his mouth without succeeding in uttering a sound. Worriedly, she glanced around the dim coatroom. "Is there some Kryptonite around? Is there a problem, Smallville?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Clark hastily assured her. He swallowed deeply and managed to gather his focus. "It's just, well, aren't you forgetting a dress?"

Lois looked down at herself in puzzlement and then laughed. "This **is** my dress, Clark."

Clark raised an eyebrow of his own in doubtful question. "But, it's all, so much, well, not there," he stuttered out.

With a confident smile, Lois stepped up to his side and slipped her hand around his elbow. "It's perfectly fine, Clark. It's just a lovely lace dress."

Clark looked down at her nervously. "Doesn't lace have, er, holes, Lois?"

Lois tilted her chin up with a glorious smirk. "It sure does, Smallville. But don't worry. The dress is lined. And your mother helped me pick it out."

"Mom?" Clark said weakly as he followed Lois's impatient pull out to the restaurant floor. If Martha Kent had signed off on this dress, he knew that it was presentable. But it sure didn't feel that way.

Groaning, Clark reached up with his free hand to loosen his uncomfortably tight tie only to be foiled when Lois raised her hand to the tight knot of fabric. "Stay cool, Clark," she advised sweetly. Clark rolled his eyes as he attempted to do just that. But he knew, deep inside, that this was going to be a long, long night.

***

An hour and a half later, Lois leaned back against her lushly upholstered seat with a contented sigh. "That was just perfect," she declared as Clark finished paying their attentive waiter.

Clark had to agree that this had been an outstanding meal in perfect company. Discussions with Lois ran the gamut from high culture to dirty politics and right back around again. More importantly, it had been an uninterrupted meal, just as he'd hoped. Clark had managed to tamp down the urge to zip off three times, listening into the emergency responders closely enough to realize that Metropolis's finest had the relatively minor problems well under control. Thankfully, no more serious matters had arisen to spoil their evening out.

Now if only he could say the same thing about sitting opposite his beautiful date in a very public place and trying not to notice how very little of her that dress seemed to cover. And how many of the other men at the same restaurant were noticing the very same fact, despite the fact that they were out with their wives and girlfriends on this most important of romantic holidays.

Lois's eyes narrowed and Clark realized that some of his thoughts must be very evident on his face. Before he did anything more to ruin the good mood they'd both worked so hard to cultivate that evening, he rose from his chair to circle around the table and assist Lois from hers. Now it was his date's turn to roll her eyes a bit at the outdated chivalry of the gesture, but Clark hardly noticed as he was distracted by the voluptuous display of cleavage below him, cradled in insubstantial-seeming lace.

"Earth to Clark!" Lois's voice brought Clark quickly back to the present. He met her eyes with a blush and she couldn't help but smile at that.

"Time to take me home," Lois said over her shoulder as she wove her way towards the foyer. Clark, one step behind her, placed one hand on the small of her back and felt a definite shiver run up her spine. He smiled at that clear reaction to his touch. Clearly, it wasn't only Lois who gained an advantage from the flimsiness of her dress.

Helping her into her coat, Clark let his hands linger on the back of her neck, provoking yet another minor convulsion. Lois spun on her heel to glare at him intently. "Don't start something you're not intending to finish, Smallville."

Hastily shrugging into his own coat, Clark smirked as he led them out into the chilly Metropolis night.

***

Since he drove, Clark retained Lois's keys all the way up to her apartment. He unlocked the door and gallantly stepped aside. "After you," he insisted. Lois gave him an odd up-and-down look but did as he suggested, slipping off her own coat to hang it in the hallway closet before uneasily making her way into the kitchen.

"Coffee?" she asked as Clark appeared around the corner. He shook his head in negation and she flitted across the tiny space to another cabinet, reaching up to grab a clear glass bottle. "How about an aperitif?" Lois waved the tequila a bit unsteadily, not from inebriation, Clark recognized, but from nerves.

Clark closed the distance between them, wrapping his hand around hers to gently disengage the liquor bottle before it broke. He put it back on the shelf and then gently closed the cupboard door while he turned Lois in his arms to regard her intently.

"What's the matter, Lois?" Clark asked. "Why are you so?"

"So what?" Lois responded defiantly, shrugging her shoulders against his hold.

Clark sighed. "So uptight, all of a sudden. Did I say something wrong? Did I ruin our date?"

Lois opened her mouth to say something, then sighed and seemed to compose herself. "No, Clark. It's, just, well, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop?"

Clark raised one eyebrow in confusion. "What other shoe, Lois?"

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "You know. Alien invasions. Meteor freaks. Lex Luthor coming back from the dead. Lana --" Clark stiffened at the last name and Lois swallowed tightly before soldiering on, "-- Lana coming back for you."

Clark had to admit that the last was a bit of a shock. When Lana had left, two years back, it had felt as if she'd ripped his heart out to take with her. But two years of building a new life in Metropolis, at the _Planet_ and now, with Lois,  had taken him far beyond the heartbroken feelings of that departure.

Clark realized that Lois was miserably taking in his silent reaction, attributing the worst to it.

"Lois," he began, struggling for the words, "it's not like that. Lana was important to me, she's still important to me -- " Lois's face crumpled slightly at those words, and Clark rushed to explain, "-- not like that. She's a friend and I'd want to help her if she needed help. But she's not you."

Lois tilted her head to regard him. Clark had the feeling that he was on probation. Any misstep, any misspoken word and the chance would be lost.

He took a deep breath. "You're the one who drives me mad at least five times a day. You're the one who makes working at the &lt;EM&gt;Planet&lt;/EM&gt; a pure pleasure, no matter what craziness we get up to. Probably because of that! You're the one who helped to pick me up when I was down, who helped me get beyond the problems of being "the Red and Blue Blur" to do good and still have a life."

Clark smiled fondly down at the uncharacteristically quiet woman waiting on his words. "And you're the only one who can still make me feel like a fourteen year old boy at his first prom date." With that, he ran his fingers up and down the uneven texture of the lacy sleeves on her dress. They both shivered.

"A fourteen year old boy, Smallville?" Lois said, with a bit of a grin. "Please, no! You know what they say about that."

"What?" Clark asked suspiciously.

She leaned against him, running her hands up the crisp fabric of his shirt and began unfastening his tie. "A boy would be all fumbling, clumsiness and racing through at breakneck speed. I may want some of that in a superhero --" Clark opened his mouth in indignation before Lois stopped his words with a finger lightly laid over his lips, "-- but in a lover, I want certain qualities that teenaged-boys lack."

"I've never been so glad to be past my teenaged years," Clark managed to get out as she slid his tie off his neck and onto the kitchen counter. He reached for the zipper at the back of her dress. Lois turned so that he could carefully inch the fastening down. Clark groaned as the insubstantial dress gave way to reveal nothing but bare skin bisected by a thin line of scandalously nonexistent lacy underwear.

"Your teenage years had their charms, Clark. I'll never forget the night we met, after all," Lois said. "But there is something to be said for a little maturity."

As she dropped the dress to her feet and spun around, nearly naked, in his embrace, Clark clung to all the semblance of maturity he could muster, not wanting to embarrass himself by losing control and taking her, right there, on the counter. "You're right, Lois," he finally managed, picking her up and whisking them at superspeed to her bedroom.

"I always am, Smallville," Lois said with a smirk as she pulled him down on the bed to join her. "Now shut up and show your date a good time."

"Aye-aye, sailor," Clark said smartly before she shut his mouth with a demanding kiss.


End file.
